Midrange Paladin Deck Tech

[toc]Introduction[/toc] I feel so good finally coming back to this deck. Since Patron Warrior became a thing I couldn’t play Midrange Paladin, and it was always one of my favorite decks. The thing is that the deck was hard countered by Patron Warrior, which was one of the most played decks in the game, if […]

I feel so good finally coming back to this deck. Since Patron Warrior became a thing I couldn’t play Midrange Paladin, and it was always one of my favorite decks. The thing is that the deck was hard countered by Patron Warrior, which was one of the most played decks in the game, if you were to face a Patron Warrior, there was literally nothing you could do as a Midrange Paladin to win.

But those Overpowered Patron Warrior days are over, even though the deck remains playable, Patron Warrior is not a menace to Midrange Paladin’s life, and to make things even better the deck is just too good (or “fair”, if you would prefer to call it that way) against mostly everything in the game. Having no bad matchups, Midrange Paladin is a deck in which winrate will depend only on one’s ability to play it correctly, which is the reason I love it so much.

Today’s build is one that I have been working for days, losing a lot, changing a lot of cards back and forward, making adjustments, etc. After a lot of thinking I finally came up with the perfectly balanced Midrange Paladin list, which is the one list we are going to be discussing today.

[toc]Explaining the Odd Card Choices[/toc]

When you read the title “Midrange Paladin” you already have a pre-set List in mind, which is probably one very similar to the one I posted when TGT first came out, but then you look at the list I posted here and start to see a lot of differences, and these differences are the ones I will be focusing here. I will also try to expand myself a little and explain why some choices remain, such as the first one:

Only one copy of [card]zombie-chow[/card] – The Chow is something I always think when making a Midrange deck and need anti-aggro cards. When I first started playtesting Midrange Paladin this week my initial lists all had a pair of Zombie Chows, but at the end it was decided that even though they were good in the Aggro matchup, they were just very lackluster in the Control one – One chow early in the game could be good, but drawing two later could be devastatingly bad, so I ended up cutting one Chow in favor of the following card.

Double [card]ironbeak-owl[/card] – After cutting Chow I had to add something that was still very good against Aggro but would also generate value against Midrange and Control, the second Owl was the obvious choice. Most decks expect us to only use one Owl, and having the second helps a lot most of the times. Also, Silence became a desired effect in today’s metagame, and is being more needed than before – given the number of valuable Midrange abilities, buffs and Deathrattles – which gives me even more reason to run the second Owl.

[card]senjin-shieldmasta[/card] instead of [card]piloted-shredder[/card] – Aggro is much stronger than it was when I first played Midrange Paladin – it is a thing now. Having extra taunts helps a lot more than having sticky minions, since you’ll most likely win any drawn out game. But Sen’jins aren’t as bad as [card]zombie-chow[/card] against Control decks, since they have decent bodies as well as helps protecting your 1/1s so that you can [card]quartermaster[/card] them the following turn, for example, but just protecting the little ones in general is something that is very helpful – sometimes not as helpful as a sticky 4/3, but still helpful enough that we have a very strong anti-aggro tool.

[card]antique-healbot[/card] over any other 5 or 6 drop – I trust [card]justicar-trueheart[/card] to win every fatigue war, so against Control we mostly only want to get to that drawn out point, which is where we’ll always win the game. Antique Healbot helps us not to die in that process, and the 8 Health has proven needed in every game I have played so far, even against Control decks ([card]alexstrasza[/card], hello?). Then you could ask me “Why not just run [card]tuskarr-jouster[/card] instead?” Well the answer is very simple: RNG. This deck runs quite a lot of 1-2-3 drops, and even if it didn’t I wouldn’t want to rely on RNG when I could just not.

The deck doesn’t seem to have a lot of Late Game – This isn’t a card choice in particular, or it is, but it is something I would like to talk about. Being able to make multiple plays a turn is what makes this deck so good, and trading small minions for big ones is mostly how this deck handles Control so well. [card]aldor-peacekeeper[/card] helps a lot in that too, so even though this deck doesn’t have a high number of high costed cards, it sure has a very strong and consistent late game. I could even say that Paladin’s Late game is the best in the game, given how the hero power – and its interactions with [card]justicar-trueheart[/card] – are, without contest, the best in the game.

[toc]Playing the Deck[/toc]

Playing Paladin Midrange isn’t something easy to do: it requires wise decisions. You have limited resources that should be spread around multiple turns, and you should use those resources wisely. Sometimes using your hero power instead of dropping something is best, but you should be capable of judging that.

Always try to look at the board’s state before making a play, don’t overextend into AOE, don’t do dumb trades and don’t throw your resources away just for a better board position when you are ahead. Try to take note of what your opponent is possibly playing so you can always be prepared for his next turn.

Always play thinking on the turns to come – this is Paladin’s true playstyle – You should never play one turn at a time, always have in mind what can, and what should, happen in the following turns.

Questions you should be asking yourself constantly:

Will I need this card more later in this game than I need now?

Will I be able to respond X card if he drops it on the board next turn? What should the best way of dealing with it be in case that happens?

What are the threats left at my opponent’s disposal?

Can I really play around him having X card in hand?

….

Of course, none of this should come to your mind in case you are facing a “Face” deck, and you should just mindlessly fight for the board and to kill your opponent before he kills you!

[img]http://cdn.meme.am/images/300x/2013030.jpg[/img]

[toc]Mulligan[/toc]

Mulligan with this deck is simpler than most other decks, you’ll always want the following cards in your starting hand:

[card]zombie-chow[/card]

[card]knife-juggler[/card]

[card]shielded-minibot[/card]

[card]muster-for-battle[/card]

Outside from that, there are minor exceptions:

Always keep [card]ironbeak-owl[/card] against Hunters and Warlocks.

Always keep [card]aldor-peacekeeper[/card] against Druids, you can also keep [card]truesilver-champion[/card] if you already have two of the basic mulligan cards.

Always keep [card]truesilver-champion[/card] against Priests.

In case you have a decent enough hand (a pair of the basic mulligan cards, for example) you should keep [card]consecration[/card] against Paladins and Hunters.

Always keep [card]justicar-trueheart[/card] against Warrior.

[toc]Conclusion[/toc]

Midrange Paladin is probably the strongest deck this week. Since Patron Warrior is now gone, I believe this to be a very decent tournament pick! So in case you are going to attend to a tournament, don’t forget to bring your own Midrange Paladin list!

Of course you can change cards in this list to fit your playstyle, but I recommend you trying this list before just to make sure if you really want to change the cards you are thinking in changing!

This is probably the list I am going to be using this weekend in the tournaments I intend to be playing also.

I hope you guys enjoyed this fast Deck Tech on my personal Midrange Paladin list, and I see you again in the next article :3